Tech —

Tit for tat? Samsung sues Apple in Europe, Asia

Samsung has responded to Apple's patent lawsuit by filing its own lawsuits against the company on Friday in South Korea, Japan, and Germany. Samsung's lawsuits don't directly address Apple's suit filed earlier this week in the US, though they do accuse the iPhone maker of violating a number of Samsung's patents related to how devices communicate with cell towers.

According to Samsung, Apple has infringed on patents on how to reduce transmission errors, reduce power during data transmission, and tether a device to a PC to share its data connection. Conversely, Apple's suit against Samsung filed Monday accuses Samsung of copying Apple's user interface design, packaging, and product design for the iPhone and iPad. When we covered the suit on Monday, we theorized that Apple might be targeting Samsung's TouchWiz UI, which is especially iOS-like in its look and feel.

"Samsung is responding actively to the legal action taken against us in order to protect our intellectual property and to ensure our continued innovation and growth in the mobile communications business," Samsung said in a statement.

Additionally, Samsung chairman Lee Kun-hee implied that Apple is simply being a bully by smacking down Samsung's success. "When a nail sticks out, [people] try to pound it down," he reportedly told the press on Friday, according to the Wall Street Journal.

Those who are familiar with both the iPad/iPhone and Samsung's Galaxy Tab/Galaxy S see similarities between the two companies' products. It's not just the TouchWiz UI that looks just like iOS—the physical design of Samsung's products have inched closer and closer to Apple's in recent years. There's no arguing that the phones and tablets share certain characteristics, but both companies clearly believe that they have the upper hand when it comes to product design and innovation.

Despite (or perhaps because of?) these similarities, Samsung is one of the first competitors to offer some major tablet competition to the iPad, and Samsung's handsets aren't doing too shabby with Android fans either. According to Apple COO Tim Cook during the company's quarterly conference call on Wednesday, however, Samsung has "crossed the line," so get ready for this patent fight to drag on just like Apple's disputes with HTC and Nokia.

Jacqui Cheng
Jacqui is an Editor at Large at Ars Technica, where she has spent the last eight years writing about Apple culture, gadgets, social networking, privacy, and more. Emailjacqui@arstechnica.com//Twitter@eJacqui